Vegetable daze (aka Gardens gone wild)

There is NO other word for it! The garden is just BURSTING with produce. The seeds and seedlings H and I planted in early spring have amply repaid our efforts and many times over. And the veg are mostly holding up to this terrific heatwave we've been having in BC, helped by the good watering H gives them every now and then.

We are going to have a crazy crop of tomatoes. I've already been picking the cherry tomatoes and eating them almost straight from the plant, like fruit. (Well, they ARE fruit, n'est-ce pas?)



As you can tell we have plenty of green tomatoes but they sure are taking their time (apart from the cherry tomato which is presenting us with beautiful red globes almost daily now). Only one of the beef toms has reddish fruit but the texture is slightly suspect; will have to look it up on Google later:



The zucchini are huge as you will see below. Today's harvest was a particularly "interesting" shape. Unfortunately I don't have a picture as I chopped it up for a curry lunch.



We've already picked one well-sized summer squash, though I'm not yet sure what to do with it...



H's mega investment in blueberry trees has borne fruit, literally. Here's our harvest (pardon the goofy expression, I am quite infatuated with these berries). Bowls of blueberries (lovely and tart) and the yellow raspberries that are milder than the red ones:



We are breathlessly waiting for the plums to ripen. Elsewhere in BC plums are already ready but these are young trees (H says) so they need more time.



The corn are shooting up like no one's business, though it will be a while yet before there's something to eat.



One disappointment has been the strawberries which the slugs have relentlessly mowed down, so that the baby berries don't even reach their equivalent of puberty. I took this shot of two little survivors two days ago but I suspect they're now gone too and made some slug really happy:



The onions are flopping over (the leaves I mean) in a clear sign that they're ready to be harvested, but we're letting them just sit and dry out, only pulling the odd one out if I need it for my cooking.



The carrots were stunted and I pulled them out a few weeks ago, replacing them with parsnips which should be good for a winter harvest. Since early June we've had plenty of kale, spinach and chard. I've started a new crop, so H and I will be eating healthfully and well, right through autumn!

Ahh autumn...I look out the door and the heat is a physical thing that I push against if I am to get anything done. Actually it's also time to start thinking about harvesting the coriander seeds and lavender buds...More on that in another post.

Happy summer days/daze!